Historically the use of precured treads was limited to retreaded tires exclusively. Tire casings are designed to survive several times longer than the tread. This is particularly true of truck tires and low aspect ratio passenger tires.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in the late 1980's introduced the unicircle precured injected molded tread. This precured tread is disclosed in European Patent publication 0-464-660A1. This annular or arcutely shaped tread had short annular wings radially inwardly extending. The wings were flexible and adapted to accommodate casings of various axial widths. This tread introduced high pressure injection molded rubber compounds having excellent wear and rolling resistance properties. Materials used in tread rubber compounds have also been improved making it feasible to transfer compression high quality treads for tires which can also achieve excellent wear and performance characteristics.
Later development efforts were concentrated on improved adhesion of the tread to the casing and in particular better ways of adhering the wing edge to the casing. On May 24, 1994, U.S. Pat. No. 5,313,745 issued to Carl L. Mace, Jr., et al. This patent related to a tread edge grinding method which effectively created a circumferential edge enabling the cushion gum rubber to migrate over the chamfer effectively locking the annular wing of the precured tread to the cushion gum in the casing. The advancement in the overall adhesion properties of the tread to casing bond coupled with the ability to meet or surpass the performance of the conventional molded new tires means that it is now feasible for new tires to be made using precured treads. One aspect of the present invention describes an improved mold for facilitating the assembling of a precured tread to a previously unvulcanized casing.